As no men were admitted to any of the chief offices, some of them emigrated, but others were glad to remain, and adopted various trades which rendered them acceptable and useful members of the community. In course of time, a desire was manifested on the part of several couples to cast in their lot together, and it became necessary to pay some attention to the marriage laws, which, as they had existed in Teuto-Scotland, were totally rejected by New Amazonians as altogether obsolete, and stupidly conducive to crime and immorality. The marriage contract, under the new code of laws, became a purely civil one, dissolvable almost without cost, upon one or other of the parties to it proving incompatibility or unfaithfulness on the part of the other. A document, received by each of the divorcees, legally entitled them to marry again, provided they fulfilled every other necessary condition. A medical certificate of soundness had to be procured before anyone was allowed to marry, as, above all, the State was determined to secure none but healthy subjects. Sometimes very painful scenes were witnessed, for each new-born child was subjected to examination, and no crippled or malformed infants were permitted to live. As all children were considered the property of the State, neither wife nor husband was responsible for their maintenance and education, and when a divorce was in prospect it was not necessary to take the offspring of the temporary union into consideration at all, though no divorces were permitted until after the birth of any expected result of such union. Nursing mothers were always welcomed with their children, and were maintained by the State, so long as the latter required their attendance. There was, however, a determination on the part of the Government to guard against the evils of over-population in the future, and Malthusian doctrines were stringently enforced. Any woman or man becoming the parent of more than four children was punished for such recklessness by being treated as a criminal, and deprived of many very valuable civil rights. It had often been the objection of legislators in the old country that Woman’s Suffrage would, in some never satisfactorily explained manner, cause an access of immorality in the land, seeing that immoral women would have as much right to vote as their more virtuous sisters. The stupidity and selfishness of such an argument is easily deducible from the fact that a large number of the male members themselves were men who led anything but moral lives. Health of body, the highest technical and intellectual knowledge, and purity of morals has ever been the goal aimed at in New Amazonia, and it can to-day boast of being the most perfect, the most prosperous, and the most moral community in existence. CHAPTER VII.